| Styles of Vinko Puljić |
|
|---|---|
| Reference style | His Eminence |
| Spoken style | Your Eminence |
| Informal style | Cardinal |
| See | Sarajevo |
Vinko Puljić (born September 8, 1945) is a Bosnian Croat Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the sixth and current Archbishop of Vrhbosna, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1994.
Contents |
The twelfth of thirteen children, Vinko Puljić was born in Banja Luka, during the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to Ivan and Kaja Puljić. His mother died when he was three-years-old, and his father then remarried. He attended the minor seminary in Zagreb; a local Trappist monk sold his motorbike to help Vinko's father afford board. He then studied philosophy and theology at the major seminary of Đakovo.
Puljić was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Stjepan Bauerlein on June 29, 1970, and then served as a chaplain in the Diocese of Banja Luka until 1973, whence he became an official of the diocesan curia. He was a parish priest in Sasina from June to November 1973, and in Ravska from 1973 to 1978. In 1978, he was named spiritual director of the minor seminary of Zadar. During this time, he also served as a confessor at a Benedictine monastery and organized spiritual retreats for priests, seminarians, and women religious.
In 1987, he returned to the Diocese of Banja Luka, where he served as a parish priest in Gradiška. He was later transferred to Sarajevo in 1990 as vice-rector of its major seminary.
On November 19, 1990, Puljić was appointed the sixth Archbishop of Vrhbosna by Pope John Paul II. He received his episcopal consecration on January 6, 1991 from John Paul II himself, with Archbishops Giovanni Battista Re and Justin Francis Rigali serving as co-consecrators, at St. Peter's Basilica.
Following the outbreak of the Croatian War of Independence, Puljić became involved in helping the thousands of refugees and exiles and advocated human rights.
Puljić was created Cardinal Priest of S. Chiara a Vigna Clara by John Paul II in the consistory of November 26, 1994. On October 18, 2001, he was invested as bailiff of the Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion in the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Puljić was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave, which selected Pope Benedict XVI. He served as President of the Bishops' Conference of Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1995 to 2002, and again from 2005 to the present.
During the war, he frequently risked his life while making pastoral trips to his parishes; he was imprisoned during one visit for twelve hours by the Serbian military in Ilijaš, running a serious risk when he rode in a United Nations Protection Force tank to Vareš. John Paul II once said to him, "When I imposed hands on you...to consecrate you in the office of Pastor of the Church of Sarajevo, I had no idea that very shortly your cross would be so heavy and your cup so bitter."
Cardinal Vinko Puljic of Sarajevo, speaking at the 2004 assembly of the Synod of Bishops, complained that the reported apparitions of Medjugorje were becoming a source of division in the Church,[1] and was involved in setting up in 2006 of a commission to examine the alleged Marian apparitions.[2]
Cardinal Puljić has said that before the war, relations with Muslims were very good, but that in recent times, the situation has somewhat deteriorated. The first sign was the arrival of humanitarian aid from Arab countries : it was distributed only to Muslims, while at the same time it was prohibited to give it to Christians.[3]